


Mea Máxima Culpa

by heartstone



Category: TOLKIEN J. R. R. - Works & Related Fandoms, The Silmarillion and other histories of Middle-Earth - J. R. R. Tolkien
Genre: Implied/Referenced Suicide, M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-06-28
Updated: 2020-06-28
Packaged: 2021-03-04 06:22:51
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Major Character Death
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,237
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/24965179
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/heartstone/pseuds/heartstone
Summary: “I did it for thee, my Love. I did it only for thee.”***Mairon puts an end to the madness of Morgoth.
Relationships: Morgoth Bauglir | Melkor/Sauron | Mairon
Comments: 8
Kudos: 46





	Mea Máxima Culpa

Saeta Dolorosa

***

Let me grieve, let me suffer

for one wound on me is one less on you.

Let me bleed, let me feel

for a cut on me is a caress for you.

Let me cry, let me moan,

as all of my tears are only for me.

***

Melkor awoke. There was no transitory space for nebulous sensations or faint gestures of half-awareness: He awoke, quite simply, as if it were only a million-year blink. It seemed to Him that no Time had passed while He lay sprawled on the ground before His own throne, and yet, as He pushed Himself upward like an exhumed behemoth, He found that His halls were deprived by that very scourge. The great seat of His authority was consumed by the sickly pale of mineral deposits, the stalagmites and stalactites turned to grand twisting spires which rose and fell like white phalanges barring His dominion.

Under the severe line of rage-furrowed brows His eyes of obsidian melted into two swirling pools reddened magma. The pitted stone beneath Him quivered, recalling the presence of its Master so long ago— its Master before diminished Morgoth: that spirit known once only as _Melkor._ He who had shaped the living rock with song only. _He who arose in Might._ And though He did not know it yet, as His unholy wrath consumed Him and sent its untamed Power through all of Angband… Morgoth wandered now forever in dreams and Melkor was come again.

He stood up and did not realize that He was no longer lame, that His temples were not weighed by iron, that He did not hurt. Instead, it was the smaller throne aside His own adamantine, one which was of the softest of golds in filigree, one which was untouched by the glistening growth of stone and seemed illumined by its own gleam. All of Angband was fraught with tremors at that reborn ancient voice in an instinct it could never have forgotten:

**_“Where has my Lieutenant gone?”_** He demanded to the silence.

Only echo and stone replied, as many small shuddering voices to be heard for fear and placation: _he is here, my Lord! he is here in the Heart!_

The halls of Angband wove in labyrinthine knots that untangled themselves before His footfall and the corridors shortened themselves like the folds of cosmic bridges. But Melkor did not take notice, such was His wrath, such did ever He let anger preside His very thoughts and every perception. Deeper and deeper He went, with seething determination, taking not a care to the decay of His fortress, nor the emptiness that filled all about Him with the stillness of the Void. He descended deeper and deeper still, to the adjoining antechamber that led to the Heart of that Hell.

Strange crawling shapes writhed against the surface of the walls, shapes of bodies melted into the limestone, the granite, the obsidian. Orc-faces lowered in the most sublime of terrors, their burned and mummified parchment-skin glistening with the absorbing minerals as they all upraised their palms in supplication. Lumps of bodies kneeled prone on the ground of the tunnel towards the gaping entrance, indistinguishable from the sloping floor and the shadows where their calcium-salt tears hung like needles from their faces. Undulating wyrms curled towards the Heart, the matted remains of wargs and wolves, the massive still bodies turned to stone and dust as they beat forever their chests and remained leaning forward upon their own swords, the blood long washed away with lamentation.

Just as the rest of Angband, His wrath turned to dust and stone at the sight afore Him. That golden throne and the assumed betrayal was forgotten, many miles above at the surface.

The Heart of Angband was a chamber over the deepest pit that Melkor had ever gnawed into the earth. Its diameter was too great to see end-to-end with the shadows and with the walled arch of the Heart. Not even its Master knew just how far that delving had gone— perhaps to the very centre of the earth, to the core of Arda wherein the Flame was planted that gave the earth its ever-churning spirit. Like a great upturned bell it roared dully but faintly in unsettling spiral-sound as if the inner mechanisms of the Design could be discerned from the groaning depths.

The floor of that Heart which looked over the rim of the pit was bestrewn with thousands of twinkling gems which He crushed to shards under His feet. Emeralds, rubies, diamonds, opals— all were thrown about as if in offering, as if in highest honour. The arched praying backs of the worshippers threw their foreheads upon the bejeweled ground, sinking deeper and deeper into the pool of earth-made stars until only the rough arms of the balrogs could be seen upraised, holding aloft above the unworthy floor and the dripping stalagmite time-keepers that observed the scene.

Melkor knew what lay in those arms, but He could not bear to look upon him without a gripping desire, a desperate plea that this was not real and still He lay afore His own throne. If He were to approach would the scene shimmer and disperse like the dream that it was? Yet the gems crushed under His knees now as He fell in grief for the image did not fade, the arms of the dead still upraised their venerated Saint, the figure still laid upon those open palms. And the carven pit behind all groaned: a groan so deep and twisting that it could not be distinguished from His own which tore now unbidden from His lips.

Memory came back to Him slowly but steadily as He wept, as He beat the gems to dust, as the calcium-salt tears made spiring stalactites spear from His cheeks to the very floor of the Heart. Still, the arms held aloft the skeleton whose pale bones, violently beaten, were held together by soft gold and fine lace. Velvet and silk embroidered in thousands of jewels kept his body in recline. Necklaces held the assaulted skull up, the displaced jaw with golden teeth and rings around a fractured cheekbone. A crown kept his temple together, garnets placed within the hole of his skull and brilliant opals in his orbitals. Despite his ruin, copper hair still curled in waves about his shoulders like living flame in the Heart, kept to his skull by the mineral-deposits of Time.

Great care was given to his hands, which rested upon his breast. The bones were held together with thorned wire, phalanges and metacarpals black and brittle as if in a familiar searing burn which had gone through the flesh.

_“I did it for thee, my Love,”_ echo and stone seemed to whisper. _“I did it only for thee.”_

The balrog-hands were unburdened: He cradled Mairon now to His own breast, let mineral-tears fall upon the broken bones of His own dead wrath, let His own burnt hands caress the thorned and winding wires. When He stood there were no more gems to crush. About His legs was only dust. The rim of the pit was filled with shadow and the groan like a heaving sea of dark water, rising, swallowing the dust of worthless gems.

At the bottom of the pit that the Heart overlooked: the very centre of the earth wherein the Flame was planted that gave the earth its ever-churning spirit.

**Author's Note:**

> Title from the (prayer?) Confiteor used in mass. It means “through my most grievous fault.” Saeta Dolorosa is the lore description of an item from the game Blasphemous, of which this work was heavily inspired by.  
> For those who are confused by my scribbles: Mairon could no longer stand by and watch Melkor descend into madness, so he stole His iron crown with the Silmarilli and threw it into the pit at the bottom of Angband. Melkor found out and beats him to death before stumbling back up to the throne room and falling into a deep slumber for many long eons before awaking.  
> Mairon's dead body was inspired by a boss in Blasphemous called "Melquíades the Exhumed Archbishop" and by the real-life jeweled saints. The pit in this work was also inspired by "Jondo," a level in the same game which is a pit that holds a great upturned bell that echoes with groans.  
> Would always love to hear your thoughts <3  
> ***


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